Page 14 of Point of Contact

As everyone wearily shouldered their rucksacks to hit the trail back toward the outpost, Jesse sidled up to Riley.

“You weren’t gonna say anything about getting hurt?” he asked quietly. “You were just gonna stand there and bleed?”

Riley grunted, his eyes a little glassy from the fentanyl. “It hurt like a bitch, man. And for a minute I just wanted to enjoy the pain, you know?” His voice was slurred. “It meant I was still alive.” He gestured at the body. “Unlike that poor bastard.”

Jesse glanced toward the dead fighter, most likely a young man just like them, a young man pointed in a certain direction and told to kill the ones he considered the enemy. He couldn’t imagine what that must’ve been like, wounded, nowhere to go, desperately crawling, realizing that the rest of your life could be measured in seconds as booted feet pounded toward you...

He shuddered. The thought of that would give him nightmares if he wasn’t careful, so he buried his feelings deep down. Right now he had a job to do.

A few days later, during a short ceremony, the outgoing unit’s guidon was lowered and theirs unsheathed and raised in its place. Then the other men climbed aboard a series of Chinooks and flew away, never to return.

Jesse watched them go, the phosphorus smoke from the enemy’s “goodbye” mortars wafting overhead.

The Valley of Death was all theirs.

* * *

Trevor struggled up from sleep and grabbed for the phone on the nightstand, fumbling at the Talk button in the dark.

“Riley?” he whispered, throwing the covers back with his other hand and climbing out of bed, glancing at Carl. The phone hadn’t woken him, so Trevor snagged his robe from the bottom of the king-size bed and pulled it on as he headed into the kitchen.

“Hey, Dad!”

Riley sounded like he was speaking in a tunnel, and there was a weird lag to his words, but Trevor wanted to weep with relief at hearing his voice for the first time since Riley had broken the news from Italy that his company was finally shipping out to Afghanistan.

“You got—there—okay?” Trevor didn’t know what he could and couldn’t say over the phone, so he played it safe.

“Yes, we’re fine,” Riley assured him. “It’s—well, it’s something else here, Dad. Definitely another world.” Trevor listened with fascination as Riley told him about the Spartan conditions he was living in, the terraced villages and interesting people. It was obvious Riley was doing his best to keep it light.

“So good to get my once-a-month shower,” he finally said with a sigh. “It’s amazing how much we take for granted back home, like hot water, toilets, Internet.”

“No toilets?” Trevor was appalled.

Riley laughed. “Nah, we have these tubes stuck in the ground that we piss in, and if we need to—well, they’re pretty much just a piece of wood over a bucket, and every now and then we burn the—geez, you don’t want to know about the burn-shitters, Dad.”

“I want to know everything,” Trevor insisted. “What are you doing over there? What’s your job?” Trevor put a kettle of water on the stove to boil, flipping the burner to high, the gas flame clicking before whooshing to life.

Dead air, and Trevor gripped the phone, wondering if the call had been lost. Then the end of Riley’s sentence as the lag in the connection caught up to his words, “—playing with guns, just the usual.” Trevor could hear the forced lightness in Riley’s voice, and Trevor knew he most likely couldn’t answer those sorts of questions.

“Well,” he said, striving for a neutral topic, “how’s the food?”

Riley snorted. “Lots of MREs, food in an envelope that’s just so delicious. Gotta love food that looks like dog food, smells like dog food, tastes like dog food.” Trevor could almost hear Riley shudder.

They chuckled together, and Riley asked, “So how’s Carl and the wedding plans?”

Trevor had been relieved when Riley seemed truly happy about his and Carl’s engagement. He was so lucky, to have found a man that his son liked and could get along with, and Riley’s approval put the crowning touch on Trevor’s joy.

“Carl’s fine. As far as wedding stuff, well, I’m basically just nodding and smiling,” Trevor said drily. “He knows what he wants, and apparently he knows what I want, too.”

Riley laughed. “I’m sure it’s hard to be in love with someone so anal. No pun intended.”

Trevor felt his ears go hot. “Riley James Estes!”

“Couldn’t resist,” came Riley’s unrepentant voice. “But it’s your wedding, too, Dad. Are you really happy with everything?”

Ah, son, I know you don’t give a crap about all this shit. But thanks for asking.

“It doesn’t matter to me, Riles, what the party is like,” he said gently. “I just want to marry him. I’d be happy with a simple ceremony at the courthouse, but since we have to go to Boston anyway—well, if he’s happy, I’m happy.”